Just figured out a simple way to fix my muddy background colors

I was working on a forest scene in Procreate last week and the greens in the back just looked flat and blended together. After about 3 tries of just adding more colors, I watched a tutorial that said to add a single, very light purple layer set to 'Overlay' on top. I tried it at maybe 15% opacity, and it instantly separated the trees and gave the whole background way more depth without changing my main colors. Has anyone else found a weird color trick that actually works for adding space to a piece?

3 comments

3 Comments

keith2641mo ago

That overlay trick can work, but honestly it often just makes things look hazy. Found it's better to just push the actual colors. For a forest, a dark, cool blue in the very back trees and a warmer, brighter green in the mid-ground creates way more real depth.

spencer_chen618d ago

I actually tried this exact trick back in 2017 when I was working on a piece for a local gallery show. The purple overlay worked okay for about an hour, but when I came back to it the next day the whole thing looked like I had put a cheap Instagram filter on it. What worked way better for me was using a soft, low-saturation turquoise in the background instead of purple. It plays off the warmth of the green in a subtler way and doesn't throw off your eye the way purple can. I think a lot of people go straight to purple because they hear it's a complement to green, but it can be too strong even at low opacity. Turquoise or even a muted sky blue gives you that separation without fighting the main colors.

margaretshah1mo ago

Wondering if we're overthinking this a bit. That purple overlay is a neat trick for a quick fix, but like keith264 said, it can look a bit off. I usually just pick two different greens, a cooler one for far away and a warmer one up close, and that solves it without any extra layers.